BC Youth Act to Change Future of Climate Change

Vancouver, Oct 15 – A team of young people from BC are heading to Poland this December for the United Nations climate conference (COP 24) to represent BC youth on the international stage and speak to the importance of supporting youth in climate action. They form a delegation with the BC Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) based in Vancouver.

“Youth bring an important sense of urgency, fueled by a visionary sense of what’s possible yet grounded in an understanding of the current reality. To adequately represent the concerns, ideas and voices of BC youth at COP 24, the BCCIC youth delegation will be convening multiple dialogues and roundtables to hear and discuss BC youth’s priorities on climate change” says Veronika Bylicki, one of the youth delegates.

Ensuring that the ideas and voices of young people are included at the United Nations has been emphasized in recent years. There is power in the perspectives and expertise of a younger generation in seeking solutions to complex modern issues, and it is crucially important to build the capacity of young people to solidify their leadership roles in a changing future. The BCCIC Youth delegation will not just be observers at this conference, but also participants who act to show leadership in the global discourse.

“Youth are not the passive recipients of these global policies, but the active change agents who are enacting them. Young people are not the leaders of the future, they are the leaders of today, and it is critical that they are at these forums,” says BCCIC Executive Director, Michael Simpson.

Youth delegate Marina Melanidis explains that “youth are a group that have contributed the least to the growing climate crisis, yet we are also the group that will face the largest challenges. Ultimately, it is our world that global leaders are debating over. It is crucial that youth are encouraged and supported to participate in global climate action. At COP 24, we will be advocating for this kind of support.”

This delegation is the second BC youth team being sent to the UN climate change conference by BCCIC (the first was last year’s delegation to COP 23 in Bonn, Germany, with individual youth delegates being sent in previous years). BCCIC also sent the first BC youth delegation to the UN High-Level Political Forum this past summer, to engage on the topic of the Sustainable Development Goals. COP 24 is being held in Katowice, Poland, December 3-14, 2018.

The British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) is a coalition of international development and civil society organizations working toward a better world.